The real crisis organizations face is a shortage of employees capable of thinking critically and making tough decisions. The writing was on the wall for everyone to see. There’s a mass exodus underway in the workforce as some 10,000 Baby Boomers turn 65 every single day. The result is that the number of Boomers in the workforce has dropped by 2.2 million every year since 2010—or an average of 5,900 people a day. That leak won’t stop anytime soon since by 2030, all Baby Boomers will be 65. The problem is that plenty of people missed the signs of this trend—and now they’re paying the price as the number of openings exceeds the number of available workers willing to apply for new jobs. The challenge is exacerbated for those companies looking to hire for specific skillsets.

In 2018, the executives at banking giant Wells Fargo issued a new strategy for their business: the overall goal was to create long-term banking relationships with their customers. And to measure how well the company was executing on that strategy, they began tracking “cross-selling.” In other words, employees would be measured, and rewarded, based on the number of different accounts—from deposits and credit cards to auto loans and mortgages—a customer opened with the bank. The CEO at the time even coined a slogan: “eight is great” to illustrate the optimum number of accounts a customer might have with the bank.  On paper, you could argue that the more accounts a customer had would likely equate with a longer-term relationship with the bank. But, if you’ve been paying attention to the news for the past few years, you know that things went spectacularly wrong. 

  How The Jaybro Group is leveling up its culture by teaching their employees to think and act like owners. As the War for Talent continues to rage across the global workforce, a few companies have made bold moves to make themselves what we might call “employers of choice.” In other words, they’re building the kinds of organizational cultures that allow them to attract and retain world-class talent even in the face of tremendous competition. A prime example of a company leading the way in building a standout organizational culture is the Jaybro Group, a full-service supplier of consumables, safety, geosynthetic fabrics, temporary fencing, and barriers to the infrastructure and construction sector in Australia and New Zealand. In April 2021, Jaybro received an award that simply made official what everyone at Jaybro already believed. Jaybro was officially certified as a great workplace by the Global Authority, Great Place to Work®—an organization recognizing the best places to work in Australia for more than 14 years. “Being a Great Place to Work gives us an advantage as we continue to attract the best talent and build brand recognition in the civil and infrastructure supply sector,” says Alison Passey, Jaybro’s Group HR Manager. “The employees who are an excellent fit for our culture remain with us for longer, are happier, and are more engaged in their work because they have found their ‘tribe.’”

    In October 2019, Rick Hedden retired from SRC after 36 years. He was 59 years old. At the time, his shares in the company’s ESOP plan were worth seven figures. But the lessons he learned from playing the Great Game of Business over his career at SRC might be even more valuable. It helped him live his version of the American Dream. Here is his story.

Inspired to diversify their employee-owned business, Malco Products has revived an abandoned factory and its iconic brand from the bottom up. The U.S. has been bleeding manufacturing jobs for decades. Back in 1980, for example, more than one-third of men with a high school degree worked in the manufacturing sector . But those numbers soon began a rapid decline fueled by a combination of factors ranging from the rise in automation and rising competition with nations like China to an increase in the so-called “skills gap” that left many manufacturing jobs unfilled due to a lack of workers qualified to fill those openings. That’s why, today,  manufacturing jobs make up about 8% of total employment , according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The War for Talent is now in full swing. As the economy continues to reopen, companies have begun hiring again in earnest—driving the unemployment rate closer to pre-pandemic levels. At the same time, the number of open jobs in the U.S.—an estimated 9.2 million—is now breaking records. It’s one of those rare times in recent history where the number of job openings exceeds the number of unemployed people actually looking for a job.

How Growth and Contingency Planning Can Help You Focus On Your Best Opportunities While Saying No To Distractions. The economy is opening up in a big way. Forecasts now peg the GDP to rise as astounding 6% this year. For some organizations out there, it might feel like trying to drink out of a fire hydrant to keep up with that kind of growth. Many of the SRC companies, for example, are seeing an unprecedented surge in demand for their products and services—levels the company hasn’t seen in nearly 40 years.

Ben Franklin famously said that the only things certain in life are death and taxes. But that’s only because ESOPs weren’t invented yet. With all the news about President Biden’s proposed tax changes grabbing headlines these days, I was reminded about a story I wrote a few years ago that was published at Forbes.com.

  How one entrepreneur uses The Great Game of Business to help fulfill her childhood ambition Erika Cisneros first dreamed of studying the law back when she was in the fifth grade. Her class conducted a mock trial of Goldilocks—who was charged with breaking-and-entering the home of the three bears—and she presided over the case as the judge. “That’s when I fell in love with the courtroom,” says Cisneros.

Demystify business by empowering your people to set their own goals and share in the rewards. Then watch what happens  Seems that a day doesn’t go by without the online retail giant Amazon making some news. Whether it’s the surging demand for its products during the pandemic or the fabulous wealth of its founder, Jeff Bezos, the company is a magnet for attention. More recently, the world turned its focus on Amazon to see if the employees working inside one of its facilities in the state of Alabama would vote to unionize. Despite ongoing horror stories of the dog-eat-dog culture inside Amazon—a story with roots dating back to a story that grabbed headlines back in 2015—the vote failed.

  Why more and more business leaders are opening themselves up to pursue a higher purpose  The impact that Bo Burlingham has made on the business world is difficult to quantify. In his time as a journalist writing for magazines like Inc. and Forbes, Bo continually put his finger on pivotal changes taking place in the entrepreneurial marketplace of ideas. But Bo may have made an even bigger impact through the books he wrote based on people he was meeting as he uncovered these groundbreaking ideas.   

When Martin Babinec founded the San Francisco-based company TriNet, a professional employer organization, back in 1988, he thought he was starting a small business that could help other small businesses thrive. Little did he know he was about to embark on a decades-long journey that would lead him to start a movement to bring good jobs back to his hometown—a journey that he credits Jack Stack and the Great Game of Business for helping fuel along the way.